philewing

*+-FARNBOROUGH, England — How does flying the F-35 Lightning II stack up against older-model fighter jets? We asked two of its most experienced pilots that very question after their presentation this week at the air show.

*+-FARNBOROUGH, England — Back in the old days, all the hep pilots were using heads-up displays to manage the increasing amount of information generated by their aircraft. Now, with sensor and navigation and network data flooding the cockpit like a fire hose, a HUD might not cut it. That’s why the latest thing for combat […]

*+-FARNBOROUGH, England — Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane is the workhorse of the U.S. Air Force’s airlift fleet, and according to the sales pitch, the only one of its kind: Both “strategic” and “tactical.” A C-17 can take off from the United States, fly straight to its objective in Afghanistan, then land on a […]

*+-FARNBOROUGH, England — Pentagon and defense industry leaders in the U.S. have a favorite, near-ubiquitous expression: They want to entice more kids into “STEM:” Science, technology, engineering and math. Future generations of engineers and scientists will be critical for DoD and its vendors to keep their edge, the thinking goes. So too here in the […]

*+-FARNBOROUGH, England — When’s the last time you heard a fighter pilot shrug, look down and say, “Eh, my airplane sucks.” Or as one might say here, “Blimey, me jet is roobish!” So all other things being equal, it wasn’t surprising that three experienced aviators convened by defense behemoth Lockheed Martin raved about its F-35 […]